Re: Re: Cork Transport

From today’s quondam Cork Examiner:

Cork Airport told to pay €100m of debt

By Eoin English, Seán O’Riordan and Stephen Rogers
THE Government has told Cork Airport it wants it to pay €100 million towards the cost of its new airport terminal.

However, the Cork Airport Authority Board yesterday ordered that a letter be sent to the Taoiseach telling him his Government will not break its promises by forcing it to take on the potentially crippling debt.

Chairman of the Cork Airport Authority, Joe Gantly, yesterday told the board that of the €220m debt it had amassed with the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), the Government wants it to pay €100m.

The DAA will absorb the rest.

The decision to saddle Cork with the debt follows several meetings between Mr Gantly, the Taoiseach, and Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin in recent weeks.

By imposing that decision, the Government has done a U-turn on the commitment given in 2003 by then Transport Minister Séamus Brennan that each of the State’s airport’s would have debt-free status once they began independent operations.

Yesterday, Mr Gantly was told by the board to write to the Taoiseach saying it rejected the proposal. The board was appointed on the basis that the airport would start free after Aer Rianta was broken up.

It is understood that airport management is working on a business plan that would incorporate the €100m debt. The plan will be brought before the board in the coming weeks. The Government wants the issue resolved before the election.

The €220m total Cork Airport owes Dublin Airport is made up of €180m for its new terminal building and €40m of older debt.

Neither Dublin Airport Authority, nor Cork Airport Authority were willing to comment on the contents of proposals.

Mr Martin’s office said as far as he was concerned the matter was still being discussed by the two boards.

Fine Gael TD Jim O’Keeffe said it was devastating news that the airport was going to be forced to pay €100m of its debt.

His party colleague Simon Coveney described the move as “the most blatant breach of a political promise in Cork during the lifetime of this Government”.

When Aer Rianta was split up and Cork, Shannon and Dublin Airports agreed to go it alone, the Government — in an effort to get the agreement of management at Cork Airport — gave an absolute assurance in writing, later confirmed by the Taoiseach in the Dáil and directly to the staff, that Cork Airport would not be saddled with the debt associated with the building of its new terminal.

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